JustWarTheory.com

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JustWarTheory.com is a free, non-profit, critically annotated aid to philosophical studies of warfare. It is owned and maintained by Mark Rigstad, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Oakland University, and supported through the sale of JWT-shirts. All profits go to UNICEF.

Main Page Topics: Introduction Classics Terrorism IRAQ IRAN Enemy Combatants Humanitarian Intervention Nationalism/Cosmopolitanism Global Society/Hegemony Civil War War Criminals (*new*)General Resources

Updated 5/3/08: Cato Institute on the lessons of Iraq; Pogge on the war on terrorists; Hitchens v Hitchens on Iraq war, etc.; Cockburn on al-Sadr; Visser et. al. on partitioning Iraq; Halevi on Israel's war with Iran; Hedges on the prospect of a U.S. attack on Iran; Stiglitz and Bilmes on our $3 Trillion War; The 9/11 Commission exposed...

Other JWT pages: Book ReviewsAlliesJWT-shirts Editorial Policy JWT Blog (3/17/08: Naomi Wolf and Doris Tennant at Oakland... 3/17/08: Juan Cole at Oakland... 3/17/08: David Estlund on following orders in an unjust war...)

INTRODUCTORY MATERIALS:

Just war theory is the attempt to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable uses of organized armed forces. Unfamiliar with the basic terms of analysis and debate? Then check out the BBC's introduction to the ethics of warfare, or read Brian Orend's excellent introduction from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Just war theories attempt to conceive of how the use of arms might be restrained, made more humane, and ultimately directed towards the aim of establishing lasting peace and justice. Contrary to facile accusations of absurdity, the idea of fighting for peace actually does make sense in theory. There is no more contradiction in waging war to keep warfare in check than there is in fighting fire with fire (which firefighters do all the time). Unfortunately, however, what makes sense in theory too often fails in practice. World War I was touted in the U.S. as "the war to end all war." Yet, the world has seen a lot of warfare since the end of WWI, some of it in more or less direct consequence of that war. Armed human conflicts turn out to be more complex, varied and difficult to control than something as relatively simple and predictable as fire. Moreover, as Barbara Ehrenreich explains in her essay on "The Roots of War", warfare tends to engender more warfare. (Imagine a fire that generates its own fuel.) Arguably, we should therefore promote and actively engage in it only on the rarest of occasions, excercising nearly "infinite caution" (to borrow a phrase from Edmund Burke). Just and peace-promoting war efforts are exceedingly rare in human history. This is the reason why nearly every major figure in the just war tradition, from Augustine and Aquinas to Grotius and Walzer, has argued that warfare is only ever justified as a LAST RESORT. In many academic enumerations of the principles of just war theory, the principle of last resort shows up at the end of the list. It is, however, the FIRST PRINCIPLE of just war theory, because the ultimate justifying aim of the resort to arms is the protection of innocent lives and this aim is usually best pursued by peaceful means. For this reason, Vincent Ferraro's introductory statement of the conventional Principles of the Just War is exemplary. The importance of the principle of last resort is not entirely uncontroversial, however. Peter S. Temes, for one, argues that the experiences of the 20th century, especially WWII and the war in former Yugoslavia, should lead us to abandon the principle of last resort. (See the JWT Book Reviews page for a review of Temes' book, The Just War: An American Reflection on the Morality of War in Our Times. (Updated 5/1/05) And in his excellent (more advanced than introductory) article on "Proportionality in the Morality of War," Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 33, Number 1, 2005, Thomas Hurka argues that the principle of last resort is reducible to the requirement that the morally relevant harms of just warfare should be "proportionate" in the sense that they must not outweigh the morally relevant benefits. (Updated 5/14/07)
Just war theory is not a settled doctrine. It is a field of critical ethical reflection. That's why there are as many just war theories as there are just war theorists. So, rather than allow traditionally accepted (yet highly contested) theoretical principles dictate what is required to justify the use of armed forces, let your first lesson in just war theory be one which you teach yourself in a simple introductory exercise of reflection: Start by thinking of a paradigm case or prime example from history which strikes you intuitively as being an instance of an ethically acceptable, or perhaps even laudable use of armed forces. And ask yourself what makes it so. If you can neither think of a single example in history, nor imagine any possible future instances of the justifiable use of arms, then you may be an absolute pacifist. If you cannot think of a single ethically condemnable act of warfare, and you "love the smell of napalm in the morning," then you may belong to the realpolitik camp. If you can think of some limited class of ethically condemnable instances or forms of warfare, and your head is swimming with great examples of ethically acceptable and even laudable warfare, then you may be a relatively hawkish just war theorist. If your head is swimming with historical examples of condemnable warfare, and you can think only of a relatively limited class of ethically acceptable instances, and few or no laudable ones, then you may be a relatively dovish just war theorist (like me). The theoretical task of the just war theorist is to figure out what sets the ethically acceptable and laudable examples apart from the rest. (Posted 8/30/05)
Just war theorists have traditionally concerned themselves with the grounds for going to war in the first place and with questions about ethical conduct in warfare. But they should also be concerned that warfare is suspended and settled in ways that help to prevent more of the same. As Brian Orend suggests, we must also concern ourselves with "Justice After War". (Posted 11/5/04)
The tradition of just war theory and the international war conventions that emerged from it help us to see many of the ways in which the use of arms might be limited and controlled for the sake of international peace. In some ways, however, this tradition (as with every tradition) fails to provide us with complete, reliable guidance for contending with present and future political realities. As Thomas B. Baines argues, "The future of peacekeeping missions will be focused on activities and objectives not anticipated by the framers and developers of traditional Laws of War." (Posted 11/5/04)
In "How Has War Changed Since the End of the Cold War?" (Perameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Spring 2005), Colin S. Gray argues for the following broad realpolitick conclusions: "First, the objective nature of war, as Clausewitz put it, is not changing at all. His theory of war [see CLASSICS section below] will apply to all modes of armed conflict in the future. An understanding of that theory is vastly more important than is a grasp of the latest military possibilities enabled by technological, organizational, and doctrinal change. . . Second, the leading driver toward, and in, war, is the political context . . . Third, war is about the peace that will follow. . . Fourth and finally, one should never forget that over time all trends decline and eventually expire . . . [and] that a major source of trouble lurks beyond the power of prediction in Secretary Rumsfeld's concept of the 'unknown unknowns.'" (Posted 4/2/05)
Richard Falk offers a very lucid reflection on the history of the political ethics of warfare from the first world war to the post-9/11 era in this video lecture from San Diego State University's Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs, March 9, 2004. (Posted 1/7/06)
When it comes to economic and military foreign policy 'imperialism' is a dirty word. Dissenters at home and abroad often condemn war mongers as 'imperialists'. But what is imperialism, you ask? Michael Parenti offers an explanation in "Imperialism 101. (Posted 2/24/06)
Robert Sapolsky's "A Natural History of Peace" (Foreign Affairs January/February 2006) asks "So what does primatology have to say about war and peace?" Sapolsky's finding: "Contrary to what was believed just a few decades ago, humans are not "killer apes" destined for violent conflict, but can make their own history." (3/3/06)
Princeton's WebMedia page includes several good, accessible philosophical video lectures on warfare. Mark Juergensmeyer's February 2006 lectures include reflections on "God and War: The Odd Appeal of War", in which he suggests that war is "a way of thinking and living through chaos in order to become free from it"; reflections on the question "Are We at War?" in which he ponders the peculiarities of the age of terrorism/counter-terrorism; and reflections on the question "What Does God Have to Do with It?" Also available from Princeton are videos of Arun Gandhi's November 2001 discussion of the power of nonviolence in "Terrorism, Nonviolence, and Justice"; and Jean Bethke Elshtain's October 2001 plea for a strong military response to 9-11 in "Just War and Military Intervention". (Note that these links are to 300k RealPlayer files, because that's what I use. If you use different software or need something slower, look for alternatives on the WebMedia page.) (Posted 4/24/06)
"Whenever it is right to resist an assault by force, it must then be allowable to do so by guile." So says Sissela Bok in Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life, and most ethicists would likely agree. Accordingly, just war theorists pondering issues of "last resort" or military "necessity" should consider the ethics of espionage and other covert means short of war that might be equally or more effective in achieving legitimate security aims. For a good introduction, see David L. Perry's "Repugnant Philosophy:Ethics, Espionage, and Covert Action," Journal of Conflict Studies, Spring 1995. For a review of the state of intelligence studies as an academic sub-discipline of international relations, see Gustavo Diaz Matey's "Intelligence Studies at the Dawn of the 21st Century: New Possibilities and Resources for a Recent Topic in International Relations," UNISCI Discussion Papers, May 2005. (Posted 2/12/07)
In "Jus Ad Bellum After 9/11: A State of the Art Report," forthcoming in the International Political Theory Beacon, June 2007, Mark Rigstad presents an overview and critical assessment of how just war theoretic principles of just cause, discrimination, and proportionality have been applied in the Global War on Terror. (6/17/07)
Contrary to Barbara Ehrenreich's argument against simplistic biological accounts of the nature of war (above), Steven A. LeBlanc argues in "Why Warfare?" that it makes perfectly good sense to think of warfare as something that is caused by complex interactions between human biology and limited environmental resources. (Posted 6/2/07) Arthur H. Westing, Warwick Fox, and Michael Renner further examine the environmental dimension of warfare in "Environmental Degradation as Both Consequence and Cause of Armed Conflict," Nobel Peace Laureate Forum, June 2001. These considerations do not completely undercut Ehrenreich's insight (above). The dichotomy between nature and nurture is best taken as representing two aspects of the causal story, rather than two mutually exclusive causal models. Warfare occurs as a result of complex biological and environmental causes, AND it is also fueled by the development of war-making industries, institutions and mentalities. (Posted 8/31/07)

CLASSIC SOURCES:

The Just War Tradition: Every educated citizen should reflect on the modern classics of the just war tradition. Follow these links to read Hugo Grotius's classic treatise on the The Laws of War and Peace (1625), Book X of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu's The Spirit of Laws (1748), Emmerich de Vattel's treatise on the Law of Nations (1758), and Immanuel Kant's essay on "Perpetual Peace" (1795). Among more recent works, Thomas Nagel's "War and Massacre", Philosophy and Public Affairs, Winter 1972, is a classic Vietnam-era philosophical argument for principled moral restraint in warfare. Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars (1977) is the consensus favorite to join the pantheon of modern classics in just war theory. The Carnegie Council has published a transcript of Walzer's general lecture with Q&A about his more recent book, Arguing about War. Also, click on these links to jump further down on this page and find a video of Walzer lecturing on humanitarian intervention, or his published comments on "Just and Unjust Occupation." (Updated 9/2/06) If you ask me Jeff McMahan's bold and excellent work in the field of just war theory is the best bet for future classic status. Here is his video keynote address on the subject of pacifism for the 2nd On-line Philosophy Conference (OPC2) on May 21, 2007. (Added 5/30/07)
It is sometimes said that just war theory originates from a Catholic tradition that can be traced to the writings of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. Although these figures and the traditions of thought associated with them are highly important and influential (See James Turner Johnson's overview), any sectarian expropriation of just war theory is historically unsupportable. Many pre-Christian thinkers -- including Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Cato the Younger, Seneca, Polybius and Sallust, to name but a few -- distinguished between just and unjust grounds for waging war, and between just and unjust conduct in the course of war. An examination of Grotius' reference materials (this task requires some reading as none of the online editions include an index) is a good guide to the full diversity of ancient, medieval and Renaissance sources, not all of which are products of Christian theology. Relevant biblical passages are found in both the old Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament, which means that just war theory belongs (in part) to a broader Judeo-Christian tradition. Although the history of mutual theological infuences is a complex affair, contemporary Judaic approaches to just war thinking are often developed in terms that are largely if not completely independent of explicit reliance upon Christian sources. Michael Walzer has voiced doubts about the viability of a Jewish "purity of arms" doctrine that has more to do with the influence of platonism via Philo of Alexandria than with any kind of well developed rabbinical casuistry of war. Even so, Arye Edrei finds a separate source of just war thinking in the efforts of Israel's first chief military Rabbi to "create a modern corpus of Jewish law and ethics relating to war and the military." See Edrei's "Spirit and Power: Rabbi Shlomo Goren and the Military Ethic of the Israel Defence Force," Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Vol. 7, 2005-2006, pp. 255-297. Further, although it is seldom recognized in the West, there is also an independent Islamic tradition of just war thinking. For a useful introduction to this tradition, see "Islamic Rulings on Warfare," by Youssef H. Aboul-Enein and Sherifa Zuhur, Strategic Studies Institute, October 2004. (Posted 7/16/06, updated 4/28/07)

Realpolitik: Philosophically, just war theory is commonly understood to represent a middle way between, on the one hand, realpolitik's narrow focus on strategies of pure national self-interest, and, on the other hand, absolute pacifism's sometimes impracticable idealism. Yet, insofar as just wars waged from positions of strength must be successful in order to achieve peace as quickly as possible for humanitarian reasons, or as quickly as is proportional for the sake of justice, just war theorists should study classic works of realpolick for their many strategic insights. The Athenian side of the "Melian Dialogue"(431 BC) from Thucydides' History of The Peloponnesian War presents one of the earliest articulations of realpolitik philosophy in western civilization. Sun Tzu's reflections on The Art of War is a widely recognized ancient Chinese masterpiece of strategic realism. Strategemata (84-96 AD) by Sextus Julius Frontinus and De Re Militari (390), by Flavius Vegetius Renatus, are examples from late Roman antiquity, highly influential in the middle ages and during the renaissance. Among other parts, chapter XIII of Leviathan (1651) contains Thomas Hobbes's philosophical repudiation of Grotius's attempt to distinguish between just and unjust wars. Niccolo Machiavelli's The Art of War (1520), Napoleon Boneparte's Maxims of War (1827), Carl von Clauswitz's treatise On War (1832), and Baron de Jomini's Art of War (1862) are also considered modern European classics of realpolitik thinking about armed conflict. The now canonical 20th century statement of strategic realism on the insurgent side of asymetrical warfare is Ernesto Che Guevara's Guerilla Warfare. G. W. F. Hegel's theory of warfare occupies an interesting space between realpolitik and Christian philosophy, as explicated here by Andrew Fiala's "The Vanity of Temporal Things: Hegel and the Ethics of War," Studies in the History of Ethics, February 2006. (Updated 11/30/06) In "Game Theory, Political Economy, and the Evolving Study of War and Peace," American Political Science Review, November 2006, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita describes how recent neo-realist studies of war and peace have advanced beyond classical realpolitik assumptions by combining noncooperative game theory with political economy models of leadership behavior. (Updated 12/31/06)

Pacifism: If, as just war theorists maintain, the use of arms is justifiable only as a last resort for the resolution of conflicts, then it is incumbent upon anyone who would propose a just war already to have studied, and to have exhaustively considered or pursued, the full range of non-violent alternatives. Although the ancient Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu directed his ethical criticisms only against "offensive wars" of aggression and conquest, he is sometimes said to have been a pacifist due to his doctrine of "universal love" and his active efforts to prevent armed conflicts during the "warring states" period in which he lived. In The Laws of War and Peace, Grotius was responding in part to Desiderius Erasmus' In Praise of Folly, which presented an impassioned and influential statement of Renaissance Catholic pacifism. Etienne de la Boetie's Of Voluntary Servitude (pdf) (1553) is recognized by many scholars of political thought as one of the earliest and most compelling philosophies of civil disobedience as a form of non-violent resistance to tyrannical regimes of political domination. For other writings that suggest the power and the promise of peaceful social change, turn to Leo Tolstoy's The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Mahatma Gandhi's "Freedom's Battle" (updated 7/29/07), and Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and "Why I am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" (RealPlayer audio). William James' essay 'The Moral Equivalent of War' looks forward to a global "reign of peace," but argues that its achievement requires substitute forms of national service (the argument is often credited with inspiring the establishment of the U.S. Peace Corp). "Democracy or Militarism" is just one of Jane Addam's important works of American pacifism. And "Neither Victims nor Executioners" is Albert Camus' expression of a global existential pacifism. Also well worth reading in the context of American reflection on warfare is Howard Zinn's argument for pacifism in his essay on "Just and Unjust War." For a very helpful guide to the philosophical varieties of pacifism, see Andrew Fiala's article the Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy. Some forms of "contingent," "relative" or "conditional" pacifism dovetail with dovish just war theory, according to Larry May's reading of "Grotius and Contingent Pacifism," Studies in the History of Ethics, February 2006. (Added 11/11/06) For a review of successful 20th century practices of political nonviolence, see Gene Sharp's Disregarded History: The Power of Nonviolent Action. Also available online is the entire text of Robert L. Helvey's On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking about the Fundamentals, Albert Einstein Institute, 2004. (Added 1/25/07) Jeff McMahan's bold and excellent work in the field of just war theory is a good candidate for future classic status. Here is his video keynote address on the subject of pacifism for the 2nd On-line Philosophy Conference (OPC2) on May 21, 2007. (Added 5/30/07) Chris Hedges, a fellow pk, has seen enough war not to like it. Check out his 2003 audio or video lecture on "the myth of war" on themes drawn from his book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. (Added 8/10/07)

Look here for the growing number of available online SECONDARY STUDIES of all of the above classic works in the philosophy of peace & war.
And this is the place for book reviews of these and other recent works in the field of peace and war studies.

TERRORISM & COUNTER-TERRORISM WARFARE: (scroll down for the most recent posts)

See how the U.S. Code defines terrorism.
For good information and objective analysis of the U.S. "war against terrorism", it's hard to beat the Federation of American Scientists.
To keep abreast of the legal news pertaining to counter-terrorism warfare, the Human Rights First website is the place to go.
Look here for book reviews related to the topic of terrorism.
The concept of "terrorism" is commonly used to designate unconventional forms of political violence and to condemn those forms of violence as inherently unjust. Click here to visit the Christian Science Monitor's website and test your conception of terrorism.
Have fun watching a video discussion of terrorism from the underground TV show "No Dogs or Philosophers Allowed".
Worried that terrorists may attack civilian populations on U.S. soil using radioactive "dirty bombs"? For a realistic assessment of this terrorist threat, follow this link to an informative MSNBC video.
Igor Primoratz's essay on "State Terrorism & Counterterrorism" (pdf) is available here for downloading from the web.
Neta C. Crawford offers an insightful evaluation and critique of America's new "permanent war" in "Just War Theory and Counter-Terror War".
Originally published in the March 1992 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, Benjamin R. Barber's "Jihad Vs. McWorld" presents an influential argument contending that both tribalism and globalism threaten democracy and generate terrorism. Timothy Mitchell challenges Barber's account in "McJihad: Islam in the U.S. Global Order," Social Text 73, Vol. 20, No. 4, Winter 2002. (Posted 11/11/05)
As the nature of warfare has changed over the course of history, just war theorists have repeatedly been confronted with new and challenging questions. Can a "War against Terrorism" be fought by conventional means? Or, as Rob Elder argues, are rations more effective than bombs against such an enemy?
Looking for a scholarly and authoritative attempt to justify the Bush administration's approach to counter-terrorism warfare from a realpolitik ("instrumental") perspective? If so, then look no further than John Yoo's "Using Force" (pdf). Yoo argues that in an age of global terrorism and rogue nations, a "hegemonic power" like the U.S. can serve both its own narrowly conceived national self-interests AND the broader interests of the world community as a whole by acting on more flexible principles of self-defense than traditional just war theories and international conventions allow. How convenient for the hegemon (or would-be hegemon). If this theory were sound, we would find confirming evidence in how stable, secure and happy U.S. counter-terrorism war efforts are making the rest of the world. Yet, most of the international community is opposed to the kind of American exceptionalism that Bush has embraced and that Yoo defends. Yoo could attempt to address this objection by arguing that dissenting peoples and states (uninformed as they are by his theory) are failing to recognize their "real interests". This rejoinder would be essentially a priori and therefore ultimately unconvincing in any sort of reasonable international dialogue. But at least it would lay bare the essential logic of imperialism: Q: Who is the best judge of your interests? A: The hegemon is, that's who, because it is more powerful than you are. (Posted 7/18/04) (For more of Yoo's thought, see the RIGHTS OF ENEMIES section below.)
Follow this link to Chief Deputy Attorney General of California Peter Siggins' discussion of the ethics of "Racial Profiling in an Age of Terrorism". (Posted 10/02/04)
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Rand Corporation fund the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, which is "a comprehensive databank of terrorist incidents and organizations" as identified from a mainstream Washington perspective. (10/11/04)
Davida Kellogg presents a useful critical account of how Guerrilla Warfare invariably leads to the proliferation of war crimes. (Posted 10/20/04)
Martin Shaw critically examines the common assumptions of counter-terrorism warfare in his essay, "Risk-transfer militarism and the legitimacy of war after Iraq". See also his Dialectics of War: An Essay in the Social Theory of Total War and Peace. (Posted 11/21/04)
In his essay on "Terrorism and the Philosophy of History: Liberalism, Realism, and the Supreme Emergency Exemption", Andrew Fiala critically examines John Rawls' Law of Peoples as it applies to counter-terrorism warfare. (Posted 11/24/04)
In "Optimal War & Jus ad Bellum, Eric A. Posner and Alan O. Sykes defend the Bush administration's post-9/11 policy of pre-emptive self-defense. They conclude that "There are good reasons for allowing preemptive self-defense, quite possibly without Security Council authorization... The potential proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction to rogue states and state sponsors of terrorism provides a rationale for invading dangerous states sooner rather than later." The framework of this approach places too much weight on the "rogue state" designation, which criminalizes enemy states and, accordingly, denies them standard protections of international law. Allowing every state to justify aggression in this manner is a clear recipe for anarchy. It would substitute name-calling and unilateral aggression for the rule of international law. Within any legitimate legal order, there are no criminal persons or states, but only criminal acts. There is no such thing as a rogue nation. There are only roguish acts, such as the promotion of terrorist activities and the unprovoked and harmful invasion of another state. (Posted 12/8/04)
Cass Sunstein's forthcoming article, "Minimalism at War" (PDF), is now available for dowloading. Abstract: "When national security conflicts with individual liberty, reviewing courts might adopt one of three general orientations: National Security Maximalism, Liberty Maximalism, and minimalism. National Security Maximalism calls for a great deal of deference to the President, above all because of his authority as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Liberty Maximalism asks courts to assume the same liberty-protecting posture in times of war as in times of peace. Minimalism asks courts to follow three precepts: the President needs clear congressional authorization for intruding on interests having a strong claim to constitutional protection; fair hearings should generally be provided to those who have been deprived of their freedom; and courts should discipline their own authority through narrow, incompletely theorized rulings. Of the three positions, Liberty Maximalism is the easiest to dismiss; courts will not and should not adopt it. National Security Maximalism is far more plausible, but it is in grave tension with the constitutional structure, and it is built on excessive optimism about the incentives of the President. The most appealing approach is minimalism, which does remarkably well in capturing prominent decisions of the Supreme Court in World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and the war on terrorism." Review: Although this is an important piece of constructive jurisprudence, Sunstein arguably does not make a compelling case for his Ginzburg-style piecemeal judge. Perhaps most importantly, his argument does not adequately address the changing character of "wartime". It makes no sense to allow the historically limited wartime provisions of the past to set the constitutional standard for a condition of counter-terrorism which lacks conceivable historical limits. Sunstein also does not adequately defend the assumption that counter-terrorism ought to proceed by more or less conventional methods of warfare (invasion & occupation) rather than by new, multi-lateral, and at most quasi-military methods of international law enforcement (international forces targeting responsible parties for ICC prosecution). Consequently, he too easily dismisses the appropriateness of a principled juridical protection of civil liberties in present-day U.S. constitutional law. Moreover, his Liberty Maximalist is a straw judge. (Posted 12/28/04)
Although it hasn't been updated since October 2003, Yale University's Avalon Project houses a useful compendium of internet-available historical documents relating to international terrorism. (Posted 12/29/04)
If you already have RealPlayer (or if you click here for a free download of it), you can sit back in your thinking chair and listen to an hour long light discussion of terrorism on the PhilosophyTalk radio show, hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor, and featuring Alan Dershowitz. (Posted 12/30/04)
Samuel Vaknin's Terrorists and Freedom Fighters, which offers historical analysis of 20th century Balkan conflict, is available for html or richtext dowloading, or online reading, from Project Gutenberg. (Posted 1/23/05)
It's worth going back in time and reading or watching The Cato Institute's 11/27/2000 Policy Forum on Terrorism. John Parachini's introductory talk is a catalogue of good advice not taken. He emphasizes diplomacy, international law enforcement and prevention, rather than knee-jerk military action. In contrast, Anthony Cordesman is skeptical of, among other solutions, any kind of legal internationalism, though he is open to unsavory alliances with "repressive intelligence services"... (Posted 1/25/05)
Edmund Santurri examines the moral evaluation of terrorism in "Philosophical Ambiguities in Ostensibly Unambiguous Times" (pdf) -- courtesy of the author and The Journal of Peace and Justice Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2. (Posted 2/2/05)
"Breathing Easier?" (pdf), is a downloadable empirical report from the Century Foundation Working Group on Bioterrorism Preparedness. (Posted 2/2/05)
Ronald Dworkin's "Rights and Terror" (pdf) is available for downloading from the NYU Colloquium in Law, Philosophy and Political Theory. (Posted 2/2/05)
In "Ethics and War: Beyond Just War Theory (pdf), Mervyn Frost argues that "In the global war onterror those using violence will have to be able to demonstrate that they really areserious about defending the values in whose name they are fighting, rather thanjust using the words to justify terror against terror. Those using force in the nameof defending human rights will have to be seen to be defending human rights, notonly at home but also aboard [sic] wherever they are threatened. Those using counterterrormeasures, including force, in the name of defending democracy, will have toshow at home and abroad that they are indeed practising democracy. Those usinganti terror methods in the name of protecting a world of free sovereign states, willhave to demonstrate in practice that they are doing this and are not practising aform of, not so covert, imperialism." Agreed. (Posted 2/23/05)
Chalmers Johnson's "Blowback," The Nation September 27, 2001, argues that "World politics in the twenty-first century will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the second half of the twentieth century -- that is, from the unintended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a Cold War posture in a post-Cold War world. The United States likes to think of itself as the winner of the Cold War. In all probability, to those looking back a blowback century hence, neither side will appear to have won, particularly if the United States maintains its present imperial course." (Posted 3/06/05)
After 9/11, Interights.org published the following two-part report on "Responding to September 11th: The Framework of International Law". Part One concerns international legal limitations on the grounds for waging war: "Peaceful Resolution of Disputes and Use of Force" (pdf). Among the relevant restrictions on the use of force is the (recently ignored) Caroline 'necessity and proportionality' test, which strictly limits the circumstances under which nations may justifiably engage in anticipatory self-defense. The Caroline test requires that the 'necessity' for the use of pre-emptive military force must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and nomoment for deliberation." Part Two of the Interights report concerns "Laws Applicable in Armed Conflict" (pdf), which include restrictions on the use of indiscriminate weapons systems (e.g., landmines, homemade mortars, and cluster munitions), standards for the treatment of civilians and prisoners of war, etc.. (Posted 3/16/05 & 8/9/05)
In "The Difference Uniforms Make: Collective Violence in Criminal Law and War" (pdf), Christopher Kutz argues "that the special problem of non-uniformed combatants and the general problem of justifying war are profoundly linked." His paper was part of a workshop recently hosted by the Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs, UC Berkeley School of Law. (Posted 3/20/05)
Mark Tushnet's "Defending Korematsu?: Reflections on Civil Liberties in Wartime" is available here for downloading. It argues that the historical pattern of U.S. governance typically involves over-reaction to national security concerns, adoption of bad solutions that abrogate civil liberties, and expressions of judicial remorse in hindsight. Unlike Sunstein (above), Tushnet acknowledges that the dangers of terrorism constitute a longstanding "normal" security condition, not an episodic state of emergency. Accordingly, a "categorical" approach to the protection of civil liberties is more appropriate than a "balancing" approach that would too readily trade liberty for security. (Posted 4/5/05)
Janna Thompson's essay, "Is There Such a Thing as a Rogue State" (pdf) is available for downloading from the excellent Working Papers Series of the Australian Research Council's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. (Posted 4/8/05)
Noam Chomsky's 11/16/2004 lecture, 'Illegal, but Legitimate: A Dubious Doctrine for the Times' is available for viewing as a QuickTime video (1:17:44) from Columbia University's Earth Institute. (Posted 4/11/05)
Does Poverty Cause Terrorism? According to Alberto Abadie's 'Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism' (National Bureau of Economic Research) "the risk of terrorism is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once other country-specific characteristics are considered." (Posted 5/9/05)
Peter Golding's "The Transformation of Counter Terrorism" (pdf), from the U.S. Army War College Research Project, April 2002, is worth reviewing. Golding's two main arguments against referring prosecutions for 9/11 terrorist crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court (ICC) are (1) that the ICC does not exist because only 42 of the required 60 signatory nations have ratified the Rome Statute, and (2) that the ICC is unlikely to adopt the death penalty. More than three years later, (2) remains true. And yet, as Golding notes, even the U.S. has been reluctant in the past to use the death penalty against political terrorists on grounds that doing so makes martyrs of them. As for reason (1) for repudiating the authority of the ICC, it effectively evaporated by July of 2002 when the Rome Statute (pdf) went into effect. Now U.S. policy, and the reluctance of the U.S. Senate to ratify the Rome Treaty that President Clinton signed in 1998, are the primary obstacles to the international legal prosecution of terrorist crimes against humanity. (Posted 5/17/05)
James Turner Johnson's "Jihad and Just War" argues that versions of "radical jihad" which purport to justify terrorism are out of line not only with western just war thinking but also with Islamic tradition. (Posted 6/11/05)
Jeremy Shapiro and Benedicte Suzan examine 'The French Experience of Counter-terrorism' (pdf), Survival, vol. 45, no. 1, Spring 2003, pp. 67-98. (Accessed 7/11/05 from MetaFilter)
Samuel P. Huntington's 'The Clash of Civilizations' (Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993) is now available from Alamut.com. (Posted 7/16/05) In a more recently published Slate magazine e-mail exchange (May 2006), Robert Kagan and Amartya Sen discuss the shortcomings and merits of the Huntingtonian vision of contemporary global politics. (Posted 7/21/05)
In his own unique version of the clash-of-civilizations thesis, Rene Girard characterizes the global interplay of terrorism and counter-terrorism (or, better, reciprocal terrorisms) as 'Mimetic Rivalry on a Planetary Scale'. (Posted 7/16/05)
There are a number of game-theoretic analyses of terrorism available on the internet: 'Terrorism and Game Theory' (pdf), by Todd Sandler and Daniel G. Arce, Simulation and Gaming Vol. 34 (3) September 2003; 'Terrorism and Game Theory', by Daniel Tay Kok Siong, Foo Yong Wee & Wee Kien Meng; and 'Terrorism and Game Theory: Coalitions, Negotiations and Audience Costs' (pdf), by C. Maria Keet. (Posted 7/18/05)
Thomas R. O'Connor hosts a large criminology website, which includes a survey of The Criminology of Terrorism. (Posted 7/22/05)
Amitai Etzioni argues that nuclear deproliferation should be the "first priority" of counter-terrorism. "The main danger many nations face in the near future is a nuclear attack by terrorists. Attempts to defend against it by hardening domestic targets cannot work, nor can one rely on pre-emption by taking the war to the terrorists before they attack. Hence, there is an urgent need to limit greatly the damage that terrorists will cause by curbing their access to nuclear arms and the materials from which they can be made..." Click here to download the rest of Etzioni's detailed report on 'Pre-Empting Nuclear Terrorism in a New Global Order' (pdf). (Posted 7/27/05)
In the best of all possible worlds, every academic journal would be available online, free of charge -- just like the Philosophy and Public Policy Quarterly. In recent years, Phil Pub Pol Quart has published some of the best philosophical work on counter-terrorism warfare, including the following: "The Perils of Preemptive War" by William A. Galston; "Is Development an Effective Way to Fight Terrorism?" by Lloyd J. Dumas; "The Paradox of Riskless Warfare" by Paul Kahn; "The War on Terrorism and the End of Human Rights" by David Luban; "The Realist Illusion, a Patriarchal Reality, and the Plight of Osama the Pirate" by Robert Hunt Sprinkle; "The Ethics of Retaliation" by Judith Lichtenberg; & "Terrorism, Innocence, and War" by Robert K. Fullinwider. (Posted 8/15/05)
Carl Conetta, Charles Knight and others at PDA, theProject on Defense Alternatives, have compiled and continue compile an exceedingly useful collection of strategy studies on, among other topics, Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism, Homeland Security. (Posted 9/23/05)
The Counterterrorism Blog, founded and edited by Andrew Cochran, is self-described as "The first multi-expert blog dedicated solely to counterterrorism issues, serving as a gateway to the community for policymakers and serious researchers." It's a good resource for keeping abreast of the inside-the-beltway view of Islamist political violence. (Posted 9/30/05)
In his essay on "The Mind of Terrorism", Jean Baudrillard suggests that "the terrorist imagination . . . dwells within us all" and the war on terror is "a continuation of the absence of politics by other means." (Posted 10/31/05)
In this online rough, rough draft of "A Critique of the Rogue Doctrine," Mark Rigstad argues that demonization of other states as a strategic element of the U.S. hegemonic gambit is transparently hypocritical and rhetorically unsustainable. Better to refrain from imagining that nation states have moral personalities. It may be useful when reflecting constructively about norms of international conduct to think about how "virtuous" and "brave" states should behave. But judgments that purport to capture the underlying moral characters of states or regimes should not guide the use of force in specific cases. (Posted 11/1/05)
Check out "Just War, Humanitarian Intervention and Equal Regard: An Interview with Jean Bethke Elshtain," by Alan Johnson of Democratiya, September 1, 2005. Elshtain is the author of Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World, Basic Books, 2003 & Women and War, Basic Books, 1987. (Posted 11/18/05)
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) have pre-published online findings from their Research Project on Political Violence which, among other things, endeavors "to analyze how governments have responded to the 'global war on terror' with regard to its impact on their domestic policies, and to assess the effectiveness of these responses in relation to locally based insurgent groups." (Posted 12/23/05)
In "Is International Humanitarian Law Lapsing into Irrelevance in the War on International Terror?", Theoretical Inquiries in Law 7(1), 2005, Dan Belz critically examines advocacy of humanitarian law as a means of counter-terrorism from the standpoint of an economic theory concerned with the "audience costs" and "negative externalities" of law. (Posted 12/23/05)
Thomas Franck addresses the issues of legal theory pertaining to "Preemption, Prevention and Anticipatory Self-Defense" in this video lecture from San Diego State University's Institute of Ethics and Public Affairs, February 19, 2004. (Posted 1/7/06)
Many just war theorists have supposed that under conditions of "supreme emergency" states are justified in targeting non-combatants who would otherwise be morally and legally immune from attack. In his article on "Supreme Emergencies and the Protection of Non-combatants in War" (International Affairs, Volume 80, October 2004), Alex J. Bellamy offers a cogent challenge to this supposition. His paper is available online for free courtesy of Blackwell-Synergy.com. (Posted 1/14/06)
In "Defining a Just War," The Nation, October 29, 2001, Richard Falk argues that "The perpetrators of the September 11 attack cannot be reliably neutralized by nonviolent or diplomatic means; a response that includes military action is essential to diminish the threat of repetition, to inflict punishment and to restore a sense of security at home and abroad. . . [and yet] . . . Unlike in major wars of the past, the response to this challenge of apocalyptic terrorism can be effective only if it is also widely perceived as legitimate. And legitimacy can be attained only if the role of military force is marginal to the overall conduct of the war and the relevant frameworks of moral, legal and religious restraint are scrupulously respected." Stephen R. Shalom responds in "A 'Just War'? A Critique of Richard Falk", ZNet, October 21, 2001. Falk's analysis of how our handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has exacerbated the problem of terrorism appears online in "Ending the Death Dance", The Nation, April 29, 2002. Ron Radosh responds unsympathetically in "A New Low for The Nation", FrontPageMag.com, April 19(?), 2002. (Posted 1/15/06)
Paul Treanor has petitioned the European Parliament "to legalise terrorism, and to assess each case of political violence separately" on grounds that present European law systematically favors the violence of status quo maintenance over the violence of political change. (Posted 1/19/06)
Amy Ellis Nutt reports for Newhouse News Service that "social cognitive neuroscientists are using technologies that normally detect illnesses to better understand the behavior and motivation of terrorists." It seems the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is funding this research in the hopes of developing neurological sensors which can "literally can look into the brain to uncover malevolence." (Posted 1/19/06)
Douglas Kellner, UCLA's "radical of the week," offers reflections on "The Mind of Terrorism" (see 10/31/05 post above) in "Baudrillard, Globalization and Terrorism: Some Comments on Recent Adventures of the Image and Spectacle on the Occasion of Baudrillards 75th Birthday." (Posted 1/19/06)
In "The Futility of Barbarism: Assessing the Impact of the Systematic Harm of Non-combatants in War" Ivan Arreguín-Toft asks "Under what conditions does barbarism -- a state or non-state actor's deliberate and systematic injury of non-combatants during a conflict -- help or hinder its military and political objectives?" He finds that "in general, war crime doesn't pay." (Posted 1/20/06)
The Federation of American Scientists offer useful analyses of agricultural biowarfare and bioterrorism and so much more. (Posted 1/20/06)
In "Chemical and Biological Terrorism: Lessons from History" (pdf) Mark Wheelis explains that "the extraordinary concern about bioterrorism that has characterized the last decade is misplaced. It has been sparked not by a rational threat analysis, but by worst-case scenarios that assume that terrorist groups are on the verge of developing the capability to deliver a military-style aerosol biological attack. There is no evidence that any terrorist group is within a decade of such a capability." (Posted 1/20/06)
In "Terrorism and Just War Theory" Scott C. Lowe argues against Andrew Valls and others who maintain that classic principles of just war theory sometimes justify terrorist acts. (Posted 1/20/06)
In "Defining Terrorism: Philosophy of the Bomb, Propaganda by Deed and Change Through Fear and Violence," Arthur H. Garrison argues that "terrorism can be understoodand defined through the writings of terrorists themselves." Some conception of terrorism is presupposed in the selection of terrorists, however. (Posted 1/24/06)
Olga Kallergi argues that "the war against terrorism can be won without sacrificing our legal ethics" in "Exporting U.S. Anti-Terrorism Legislation and Policies to the International Law Arena, a Comparative Study: the Effect on Other Countries' Legal Systems." (Posted 1/26/06)
In "Legal Lines in Shifting Sand: Immigration Law and Human Rights in the Wake of September 11," Daniel Kanstroom outlines a pragmatic, consensus-based approach to the following legal issues in our counter-terrorism practices: "government disclosure and the public's right to know; the deportation system's habeas corpus practices; racial profiling; the convergence of immigration and criminal law since the attacks; judicial review of military detentions at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere; and noncitizens' rights in the United States and the European Union." (Posted 1/26/06)
Vanda Felbab-Brown examines the connection between international drug trade and political violence in "A Better Strategy Against Narcoterrorism," MIT Center for International Studies Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, January 2006. (Posted 2/9/06)
Benjamin H. Friedman helps to put into perspective the menace of terrorism and the cost of protecting ourselves against it in "The Hidden Cost of Homeland Defense," MIT Center for International Studies Audit of the Conventional Wisdom, November 2005. (Posted 2/9/06)
"Good Lives, Bad Lives" is the first chapter of Ted Honderich's book, After the Terror(2002), a sustained philosophical reflection on terrorism. See the JWT Book Reviews page for Richard Wolin's review and Honderich's reply to Wolin. There has also been some extra-curricular controversy surrounding Honderich's book. In this first chapter he argues that "History is a proof that peoples demand the freedom that is their running of their own lives in a place to which their history and culture attaches them. It is a freedom for which oppressed people have always fought. It is a freedom such that a threat against it in 1939 united almost all of us against Germany. It has been denied to the Palestinians. . . Palestinians have been denied by their enemy exactly the right of a people that has been secured and defended by that enemy for itself. . . The terrible inconsistency is plain to all who are unblinded, plain to very many Jews in and out of Israel. No hair-splitting will help. It is as plain to those of us who also see that it was a moral necessity after the second world war that the Jews come to have a homeland, in Palestine if not elsewhere." (First posted 1/10/05, updated 2/23/06)
Alan Johnson argues that "The fact is we are not engaged in a 'war on terror', any more than World War Two was a 'war on blitzkrieg'. We are engaged in a conflict with Totalitarian Political Islam and our enemy uses not only terror but also 'popular' riot, electoral politics, and ideological warfare." His essay, "Camus' Catch: How Democracies Can Defeat Totalitarian Political Islam," recommends a form of democratic internationalism as the key component of a workable political solution. (Posted 3/16/06)
In "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt argue that "saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around." This long and detailed study of the impact of pro-Israel lobbying on U.S. security interests is also available in abridged form. (Posted 3/23/06)
Robin Frost's "Nuclear Terrorism Post-9/11: Assessing the Risks," Global Society, Vol 18, No 4, October 2004, is available as a sample upon request from Routledge. (Posted 3/25/05)
In this December 2004 video (RealPlayer), Alan Krueger presents a lecture entitled, in the manner of presidential locution, "Misunderestimating Terrorism: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism". Available from Princeton WebMedia. (Posted 4/24/06)
In "The Crusader", a review of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden (edited by Bruce Lawrence and translated by James Howarth), Khaled Abou El Fadl provides insight into the worldview of America's elusive enemy and argues that we have unwisely bolstered its credibility. (Posted 5/17/06)
In "Terrorism and Response: A Moral Inquiry into the Killing of Noncombatants," Camillo C. Bica argues that the deliberate killing of non-combatants in terrorist attacks and the "collateral" killing of non-combatants in counter-terrorism warfare are "morally equivalent." (Posted 5/18/06)
Richard J. Goldstone and Janine Simpson remind us of "the important link between peace and prosecution by an impartial court" in "Evaluating the Role of the International Criminal Court as a Legal Response to Terrorism," Harvard Human Rights Journal, Volume 16, 2003. (Posted 5/21/06)
James Roper uses rational choice theory to show that American's exaggerate the risk of terrorism in "Probability and Risk Assessment: Taking a Chance on 'Terrorism'," Florida Philosophical Review, Vol. II, issue 2, Winter 2002. (Posted 5/21/06)
In "Optimal Liability for Terrorism," Darius Lakdawalla and Eric Talley offer a game-theoretic analysis to show that "the September 11 Victims' Compensation Fund waswell-conceived, but may not have gone far enough to preclude opt-out tort claims." (Posted 6/1/06)
In "Before and After 9/11," Ars Disputandi, Volume 6, 2006, Tom Rockmore challenges the notion that 9/11 radically altered the shape of global society. (Posted 6/22/06)
In ""Terrorism and War," The Journal of Ethics Volume 8, 2004, Virginia Held compares war and terrorism "to show how war can be morally worse." (Posted 7/7/06)
Question: How difficult would it be for terrorists to smuggle radioactive materials across U.S. borders? Answer: Not very difficult at all. The proof is in this interesting report of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). (Posted 7/12/06)
Anna Goppel's "Defining 'Terrorism' in the Context of International Law", Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Working Paper 2005/1, proposes set of requirements that a useful international definition ought to meet and defines terrorism accordingly. (Posted 7/13/06)
Samuel Scheffler asks "What's Morally Distinctive about Terrorism?", in contrast with other prima facie evils. He finds that what is distinctive about terrorism is that, in producing the kind of widespread fear that destabilizes existing social orders, it "treats the primary victims as means to a means." (Posted 7/13/06)
Allen Buchanan's outstanding and important "Institutionalizing the Just War" is publicly available online for a limited time, thanks to the IPT Beacon. I include it in this section because it addresses the issue of preventive military force in the global war on terror. "The debate has proceeded within the confines of a rarely stated framing assumption: that the key question is whether to abandon the JWN [Just War Norm "according to which war is permissible only in response to an actual or imminent attack"] in favor of a more permissive norm regarding the use of force. I shall argue that the assumption that the choice between competing norms is mistaken. The proper choice is between adherence to the JWN and the creation of new institutions that would allow for a more permissive norm. Not just alternative norms but also alternative combinations of norms and institutions need to be evaluated." Buchanan also addresses the issue of whether and under what institutional conditions interventive wars of "forced democratization" may be justifiable; so, it also belongs in the following section (though you won't find it there). I strongly agree with Buchanan's general claim that just war theory, broadly construed as ethical theorizing about the restraint of warfare, cannot simply invoke a priori intuitive principles, but must consider possibilities for normative change that might follow from changes in global institutions. But I'm not convinced by the suggestion that we can achieve adequate institutional restraints in the absence of an authoritative global juridical body like the ICC. There is, of course, no a priori reason for thinking that human rights will be protected best by the ICC as currently established. But what global system of checks and balances can adequately restrain putatively preventive and democratizing wars in the absence of juridical institutions for the enforcement of international human rights law? It sounds like a good start to require that perpetrators of unjust regime changes "must bear a greater proportion of the costs of the war and of post-war reconstruction and / or have less of a say in how the reconstruction is carried out." But why not also add courts of universal jurisdiction to the mix? (Posted 7/30/06)
In "Killing Naked Soldiers: Distinguishing between Combatants and Noncombatants," Ethics & International Affairs Volume 19, Issue 3, December 2005, Larry May critically examines and reformulates the traditional principle of discrimination that informs both just war theory and international humanitarian law. (Posted 8/15/06)
Check out Robin Frost's reasoned assessment of "Nuclear Terrorism Post-9/11: Assessing the Risks," Global Society, Volume 18, Number 4, October 2004. Registration required for free access. (Posted 8/16/06)
In "The Failures of Just War Theory: Terrorism, Harm & Justice" (2003), F. M. Kamm critically examines the doctrine of double-effect and specifies conditions under which terrorism may be justifiable. (Posted 9/3/06)
In "Pyrrhus on the Potomac: How America's post-9/11 wars haveundermined US national security," Project on Defense Alternatives Briefing Report, number 18, September 5, 2006, Carl Conetta argues persuasively that "measured in the coin of long-term security and stability, post-9/11 policy has cost more than it has gained." (Posted 9/8/06)
Is the "hunt" for Osama bin Laden a ruse? Michel Chossudovsky argues that it is in "Where was Osama on September 11, 2001?," Center for Research on Globalization, September 9, 2006. (Posted 9/14/06)
The latest buzzword for bipartisan collaboration in counter-terrorism is "Energy Security," which is increasingly conceived as requiring U.S. independence from foreign oil, but especially from "rogue nation" oil. This means that we can effectively resist terrorism by developing biofuels and other alternative energy sources; but it also means that one of the American casualties of the war on terror may be the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. (Posted 9/22/06)
In "How to Deal with Terrorism," The Economists' Voice, Vol. 3: No. 7, Article 4, 2006, Bruno S. Frey argues that "terrorism has been fought in the wrong way. Instead of focusing on deterrence and preemptive strikes, we should: (1) Reduce vulnerability by decentralizing society; (2) Strengthen positive incentives to leave the terrorist camp; and (3) Divert media attention from terrorist groups." Registration with this journal is free. (Posted 10/10/06)
In "Peace Cops? Christian Peacemaking and the Implications of a Global Police Force," Sojourners Magazine, March 2006, Tobias Winright explores the prospects for Christian participation in a globalized "community policing" approach to counter-terrrorism. Thanks to Tobias for sharing the link. (Posted 10/20/06)
Kenneth Anderson outlines a congressional agenda for counter-terrorism legislation in "Law and Terror," Policy Review, volume 139, October/November 2006. The judiciary can only be expected to play a marginal role in the task of specifying the limits of executive power, and so far the legislative branch has offered very little in the way of clear and effective checks and balances. (Posted 10/21/06)
C. A. J. Coady's "Defining Terrorism," from Terrorism: The Philosophical Issues, Igor Primoratz ed. (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 3-14, is available online courtesy of the publisher. (Posted 10/28/06)
"The Terrorism Index," Foreign Policy, July/August 2006, asks "Is the United States winning the war on terror?" Answer: "Not according to more than 100 of America's top foreign-policy hands. They see a national security apparatus in disrepair and a government that is failing to protect the public from the next attack..." (Posted 11/10/06)
Whitley Kaufman's "What's Wrong with Preventive War? The Moral and Legal Basis for the Preventive Use of Force," Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 19, Number 3, Fall 2005, argues that "Both under Just War Doctrine and common sense morality, preventive war is indeed justifiable, so long as it satisfies the basic requirements for going to war such as necessity and proportionality. However, under the current international law regime governed by the United Nations Charter, the use of preventive international force is restricted to the Security Council alone." (Posted 11/30/06)
Bruce Ackerman argues for dealing with terrorist attacks in terms of "The Emergency Constitution," and argues that "This is not War," in Yale Law Journal, Volume 113, 2004. In his view, which is more reasonable than the conventional wisdom, terrorist attacks should be considered as constitutionally and temporally limited "states of emergency" short of war. (Posted 12/18/06)
In "The 'War on Terror' and the Erosion of the Rule of Law:The U.S. Hearings of the ICJ Eminent Jurist Panel," Human Rights Brief, Volume 14, Issue 1, Winter 2006, Mark W. Vorkink & Erin M. Scheick look at the global war on terror as a "litmus test" for human rights and the rule of law. (Posted 1/21/07)
William E. Scheuerman, "Rethinking Crisis Government," 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, August 29-September 1, 2002. Abstract: "The rush to broaden executive prerogative in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks rests on a series of traditional assumptions about the nature of executive power that no longer hold water. In particular, the conventional conception of the unitary executive as best suited to the demanding tasks of crisis government is subject to criticism." (Posted 1/25/07)
In "Sending the Bureaucracy to War," Forthcoming in Iowa Law Review, Volume 92, 2007, Elena A. Baylis & David Zaring critically examine post-9/11 changes in U.S. administrative law that facilitate certain abuses of state and federal executive powers. (Posted 2/1/07)
In section III of "Morality & Consequences," The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, May 1980, Jonathan Bennett examines the "oddness" of the doctrine of double effect that is often invoked to distinguish between justifiable tactical bombing and unjustifiable terror bombing. (Posted 2/3/07)
Foreign Policy's "Terrorism Index," a bi-partisan study of 100 top national security experts, suggests that the global war on terror has made American's less secure. (Posted 2/16/07)
In "A Matter of Pride," Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Winter 2007, Michael Lind & Peter Bergen argue that the "humiliation theory" of radical political violence explains "why so many terrorists come from middle-class or wealthy backgrounds." (Posted 2/18/07)
In "Countering Global Insurgency," Small Wars Journal, November 30, 2004, David Kilcullen outlines a "disaggregation" strategy for managing the "ecosystem" of Islamist terrorism. See also his "Counterinsurgency Redux," Small Wars Journal, September 17, 2006. (Posted 2/27/07)
In "The Bush Doctrine and Just War Theory", The Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution, volume 6, number 1, Fall, 2004, Dale T. Snauwaert argues that "In a number of ways the Bush Doctrine as a response to international terrorism is, tragically,undermining the international moral and legal order, thereby undermining the very order necessary for sustainable security against terrorism." (Posted 3/14/07)
In "Assessing the Effectiveness of the UN Security Council's Anti-terrorism Measures: TheQuest for Legitimacy and Cohesion," The European Journal of International Law, Vol. 17, no.5, 2007, pp. 881-919, Andrea Bianchi "attempts to evaluate, primarily from the perspective of legal interpretation, how to reconcile the predominant security concerns underlying anti-terror measures with the cohesion of the international legal system." (Posted 6/9/07)
In "Assassination and Targeted Killing: Law Enforcement, Execution or Self-Defence?" Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 23, No. 3, 2006, Michael Gross argues that "While named killings might be defensible on the grounds that there are no other ways to disable combatants when they fight without uniforms, the costs, including the cost of targeted killing emerging as an acceptable convention in its own right, should be sufficient to view the practice with a good deal of caution." (Posted 6/17/07)
In "Jus Ad Bellum After 9/11: A State of the Art Report" (pdf), The International Political Theory Beacon, Issue 3, June 2007, Mark Rigstad presents an overview and critical assessment of how just war theoretic principles of just cause, discrimination, and proportionality have been applied in the Global War on Terror. Also available here in html format. (Posted 4/30/07. Updated 6/17/07)
Chet Richards has posted online a draft of the introduction to his next book, If We Can Keep It, in which he debunks our myths of national defense. (Posted 6/18/07)
Richard Rorty recently died at 75, unleashing a torrent of reminiscence, criticism and encomium. On March 4, 2004, in Potsdam, Rorty concluded a lecture about "Anti-terrorism and the National Security State" with these ominous words: "In Europe and in North America elites have come to believe that they cannot carry out their mission of providing national security if their deliberations are carried out in public, and 9/11 only strengthened this conviction. Further attacks are likely to persuade those elites that they must destroy democracy in order to save it. Historians may someday have to explain why the West's golden age lasted only 200 years. The saddest pages in their books will be those in which they describe how the citizens of the democracies, by their craven acquiescence in governmental secrecy, helped bring about the disaster." Was he right? I don't know. As Rorty himself once famously said, "Time will tell; but epistemology won't." Setting aside the question of its truth, I'm left simply with the desire that his concluding remark should be proven wrong, and the desire to do what I can to make sure that it will be proven wrong. Insofar as this appears to be the kind of response that Rorty wished to elicit, I have to say that I'm in accord. Follow these links to watch part one and part two of the video recording of Rorty's lecture. (Posted 6/21/07)
In "The Legacy of Nuremberg: Confronting Genocide and Terrorism Through the Rule of Law," Gonzaga Journal of International Law, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2006, John Shattuck argues that the Bush Doctrine has undermined our most effective legal means of combating terrorism. (Posted 6/26/07)
In "Criminal Defendants and Military Enemies: Defining the Terrorist Threat," FSU College of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 264, August 24, 2007, Benjamin J. Priester defends a way of integrating military and criminal models for defining transnational terrorist organizations. (Posted 9/1/07)
David M. Lieberman examines the legal difference between terrorists and freedom fighters in "Sorting the Revolutionary from the Terrorist: The Delicate Application of the 'Political Offense' Exception in U.S. Extradition Cases," Stanford Law Review, Volume 59, Issue 1, pp. 181-212. (Posted 10/20/07)
Neal Katyal addresses the constitutional 'equal protection' issues raised by the Military Commissions Act in "Equality in the War on Terror," Stanford Law Review, Volume 59, Issue 5, pp. 1365-1394. (Posted 10/20/07)
In "Rendered Meaningless: Extraordinary Rendition and the Rule of Law," NYU School of Law Working Papers Number 43, November 20, 2006, Margaret L. Satterthwaite examines arguments in favor of outsourcing torture, and finds them wanting. (11/10/07)
In "Terrorism and Just War," Philosophia, Volume 34, August 2006, pp. 3�12, Michael Walzer asks "What can go wrong in the �war� against terrorism, and is just war theory equally helpful in thinking about this �war� � where the scare quotes are always necessary?" (Posted 11/14/07)
In "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 3, August 2003, Robert A. Pape argues that "Religious fanaticism does not explain why the world leader in suicide terrorism is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. . . To advance our understanding of this growing phenomenon, this study collects the universe of suicide terrorist attacks worldwide from 1980 to 2001, 188 in all. In contrast to the existing explanations, this study shows that suicide terrorism follows a strategic logic, one specifically designed to coerce modern liberal democracies to make significant territorial concessions." (Posted 12/26/07)
In "Terrorism, Shared Rules and Trust," forthcoming in the Journal of Political Philosophy, Matthew Noah Smith argues that "terrorism is specially objectionable because terrorist acts threaten two very valuable things: valuable shared rules of war and valuable trusting relationships between both international allies and nations at war." (Posted 1/16/08)
In "The Senses of Terrorism," forthcoming in Review Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 6, fall 2008, Mark Rigstad exposes "the methodological errors involved in attempting to value-neutralize the concept" of 'terrorism,' and defends "an effects-based approach to the taxonomy of �terrorism� that builds out from a central conceptual connection between the term�s negative connotation and a widely shared moral presumption against the killing of innocent non-combatants." (Posted 1/16/08)
For a very good introductory overview of the philosophy of "Terrorism", see Igor Primoratz's entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Posted 2/10/08)
In "They knew, but did nothing," an extract from his new book on the 9/11 Commission, Philip Shenon "uncovers how the White House tried to hide the truth of its ineptitude leading up to the September 11 terrorist attacks." (Posted 3/10/08)
In "Making War on Terrorists: Reflections on Harming the Innocent," Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp. 1-25, March 2008, Thomas Pogge asks "whether all this barbarity, much of it inflicted on innocents, is necessary to protect our societies from terrorist attacks." Good question. Pogge argues that "the vast majority" in the US & UK unthinkingly assume that our governments' "first responsibility" to protect its own citizens is not seriously constrained by "the interests of innocent people abroad." The upshot is a damning indictment: "This is a disastrous flaw in our public culture�one that, quite apart from its horrific effects, fundamentally undermines our ambition to be a civilization that strives for moral decency." (Posted 4/26/08)

INVASION & OCCUPATION OF IRAQ: (scroll down for the most recent posts)

David M. Ackerman offers a useful analysis of "International Law and the Preemptive Use of Force against Iraq" for the Congressional Research Service.
Look to Centcom's Multinational Security Transition Command website for the success stories of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In the fall of 2002 and spring of 2003, the vocabulary of just war theory was often heard accompanying the drums of war. Yet, the cosmopolitan principles that have traditionally given those words some semblance of ethical meaning were strangely and sadly silent. Follow these links to find out in what ways the invasion of Iraq violated both the letter and (especially) the spirit of Hugo Grotius' just war theory, as presented by Dean G. Falvy & Martha Nussbaum respectively. (Posted summer 2004)
The primary putative justification for pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was based upon what the U.S. Senate has since discovered were "overstated", "unsupported" and "micharacterized" intelligence reports about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. All the declassified parts of the Committee on Intelligence report are available here for downloading. (Posted summer 2004))
What role did the media play in misrepresenting the scope and immediacy of the threat that Saddam Hussein's regime presented to the U.S.? Susan D. Moeller gives a thorough answer to this question in her analysis of Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction for the University of Maryland's Center for International and Stragetic Studies. (Posted summer 2004)
One of the enduring basic principles of just war theory is the principle of discrimination, which enjoins the commanders of armed forces to take positive steps to protect non-combatants. Yet, the use of cluster munitions in Iraq, especially in densely populated areas, constitutes a clear violation of this principle. Unexploded cluster munitions now clutter Iraqi cityscapes like countless tiny but deadly landmines. (Posted summerr 2004)
As with its physical environment, Iraq's political climate is also fraught with new and challenging perils (whether these will turn out to be better or worse than the old political perils remains to be seen). In "Humanitarian Action Under Attack: Reoections on the Iraq War," Harvard Human Rights Journal, Volume 17, Spring 2004, Nicholas de Torrente of Doctors Without Borders presents a revealing study of how the political climate in Iraq has added to the usual difficulties of humanitarian action. He argues that non-governmental humanitarian organizations need to maintain principled neutrality in order to fulfill their missions. In "Politicized Humanitarianism," Paul O'Brien offer a critical response to de Torrente's article. (Posted summer 2004)
Does depleted uranium pose a serious health risk to both innocent Iraqis and unsuspecting coalition ground troops? Dan Fahey's June 2004 article, "The Emergence and Decline of the Debate over Depleted Uranium Munitions," is the most exhaustive and balanced assessment of the facts, fictions and uncertainties that I have found. It's available for downloading (pdf) from the Review of International Social Questions. (Posted 7/18/04)
Cross-cultural incomprehension got the U.S. military into trouble in Vietnam (see, for example, Errol Morris's documentary film 'The Fog of War' which includes Robert MacNamara's tardy realization that the Vietnamese did not view us as liberators). Yet, the lesson did not take. In a similar fashion, the Bush administration, blaming Chalabi and other Iraqi ex-pats, has admitted that it was ill-informed about the disposition of the Iraqi people towards U.S.-sponsored regime change in their country. Better information was available, however. For starters, Juan Cole's Informed Comment is an excellent internet resource for making sense of Islamic politics in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. (8/26/04)

Cost of the War in Iraq

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Also worth mentioning when calculating the costs of the Iraqi invasion and occupation, over and above the countless and too often uncounted Iraqi casualties, are the thousands of U.S. casualties. Perhaps most alarming is that the U.S. casualty rate has actually increased since the president officially declared the 'end of combat operations'. For those interested in the numbers, the most accurate and detailed report of U.S. casualties in Iraq is the one presented by GlobalSecurity.org. (9/3/04)
In the early spring of 2003, I argued that the most likely outcome of a U.S./British invasion of Iraq was the eventual "partitioning" of that country. I imagined at that time a process over which the "coalition" forces had more control than the process currently unfolding. "Partitioning" no longer seems the appropriate word for the potential demise of Iraq's national integrity. In this connection, Chatham House has now published a relevant report (pdf) characterizing "civil war" and "fragmentation" as the "default scenario" in Iraq. The Chatham House scholars present two other well-drawn alternative scenarios for Iraq "holding together" or undergoing a unique sort of "regional remake". (9/04/04)
Adam Roberts of the International Humanitarian Law Research Initiative (a site with free, no-strings registration) attempts to answer a swarm of pesky questions about the occupation of Iraq, including the following: "What does the law of war, and international practice since 1945, say about how occupations end? What does 'sovereignty' mean both in general, and with reference to the Interim Government of Iraq? Is the continuing presence of foreign forces compatible with Iraqi sovereignty?" (Posted 10/26/04)
A new Johns Hopkins University study puts the civilian toll in Iraq at over 100,000 and climbing. This is an important figure given that apologists for the war, such as Gerard Alexander, have argued erroneously that the invasion and occupation has probably SAVED civilian lives because "the [Hussein] regime was killing civilians at an average rate of at least 16,000 a year between 1979 and March 2003." To be sure, the ongoing hybrid Iraqi insurgency/civil war is the cause of most of these civilians deaths. But it remains important to construct normative and policy arguments in light of the facts, not in the face of them. Fact: the rate at which civilians are killed in Iraq has more than tripled since regime change commenced. (Posted 10/30/04)
David Luban tackles the central philosophical issue raised by the putative justification for invading Iraq in his scholarly examination of "Preventive War". This piece is a must-read for serious just war theorists. (Posted 11/23/04)
Jeff McMahan's "Moral Case Against the Iraq War" is available for dowloading courtesy of The Leiter Report. (12/1/04)
Many liberals who originally supported the invasion and occupation of Iraq are now feeling embarrassed and angry at having been duped. It's in this spirit that the New Republic now presents a daily critical BLOG called IRAQ'D. (Posted 12/30/04)
Bradford Plumer of MotherJones interviews Noah Feldman, former adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, "on the ethics of nation-building and the promise and perils of Iraqi elections." (Posted 1/21/05)
The International Crisis Group makes constructive recommendations for the resolution of Turkish-Kurdish tensions in Kirkuk. (Posted 1/29/05)
Susie Linfield's refreshing and insightful "The Dance of Civilizations:The West, the East, and Abu Ghraib," is available from the Winter 2005 edition of Dissent magazine. (Posted 2/9/05)
"There are things I have to do out here that I can't explain to my chain of command, and that the American people would never understand," says Sgt. First Class Glenn Aldrich in a Knight Ridder interview that probes deeper than most mainstream media coverage into the ethical and strategic difficulties that U.S. troops are facing in Iraq. (Posted 2/19/05)
In "Going to War with the Army You Have", Michael Schwartz casts doubt on the prevailing American "command and control" theory about the Iraqi resistance. The CIA seems to agree with Schwartz. (Posted 3/8/05)
Mapping the Oil Motive (from the Global Policy Forum): "Michael T. Klare (TomPaine) writes that the Bush administration's choice to invade Iraq stemmed from "a combination of contributing factors," including control of the country's oil resources. But "it appears that the US incursion into Iraq [...] has largely failed to achieve its intended purposes." The insurgency has crippled the country's capacity to export more oil, and "no one is willing to predict when, if ever, the country will reach the fabled level of 6 million barrels per day" that US officials confidently spoke of after the invasion." (Posted 3/25/05)
H. C. Graf Von Sponek's "Iraq and the United Nations, Post-War and Pre-Peace: The Dilemma of the Future" (pdf) is available for downloading from The Essex Human Rights Review, vol. 2, no. 1. The article examines why UN sanctions against Iraq were deemed "necessary in the name of international peace and security despite their negative humanitarianconsequences," it attempts to identify the "institutional failings which contributed towards such a policy," and it recommends "alternative approaches". (Posted 3/30/05)
Naomi Klein offers some astute observations and analyses in "How To End The War", In These Times. Klein went to Iraq to cover the reconstruction and was surprised by what she found: "...I saw bulldozers in the Green Zone, where a huge amount of construction was going on, building up Bechtel's headquarters and getting the new U.S. embassy ready. There was also a ton of construction going on at all of the U.S. military bases. But, on the streets of Baghdad, the former ministry buildings are absolutely untouched. They hadn't even cleared away the rubble, let alone started the reconstruction process... The one crane I saw in the streets of Baghdad was hoisting an advertising billboard. One of the surreal things about Baghdad is that the old city lies in ruins, yet there are these shiny new billboards advertising the glories of the global economy. And the message is: 'Everything you were before isn't worth rebuilding.' We're going to import a brand-new country. It is the Iraq version of the 'Extreme Makeover'..." May 5, 2005. (Posted 5/6/05)
The "Downing Street memo" contains the minutes of July 23, 2002 meeting in which British officials discussed talks with the Bush administration about Iraq. The memo was leaked to The Times of London, and it confirms that the Bush administration deliberately falsified its case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As it states, British officials knew that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." (Posted 5/17/05)
'Vicious Circle: The Dynamics of Occupation and Resistance in Iraq', by Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), is a new, informative online report, based upon Iraqi public opinion surveys. It suggests that U.S. withdrawal is probably the best way to quell the growing insurgency. (Posted 5/21/05)
In "Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq War: Realism Versus Neo-Conservatism," from OpenDemocracy.net, John Mearsheimer argues that the influential American realist would have opposed the occupation of Iraq the way he opposed the war in Vietnam. (Posted 5/21/05)
James Turner Johnson's approach to just war theory offered strong support in December 2002 for waging a punitive and democratizing war in Iraq. His "Using Military Force Against the Saddam Hussein Regime:The Moral Issues" is available courtesy of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. (Posted 6/11/05)
The texts of numerous presentations at the ongoing World Tribunal on Iraq are available for viewing online. (Posted 6/25/05)
As a follow up to 'Vicious Circle' (my 5/21 post above), the PDA presents '400 Days and Out', a report outlining a withdrawal process for U.S. troops in Iraq by september 2006. (Posted 7/18/05)
James B. Rule's "'Above All, Do No Harm': The War in Iraq and Dissent" is available online in the summer 2005 edition of Dissent Magazine. (Posted 8/9/05)
In a recent edition of Michigan International Lawyer, John M. Hilla addresses the question of whether the invasion of Iraq has reshaped the norms of international customary law relating to the use of force. (Posted 8/15/05)
Jeffrey Laurenti of the Century Foundation examines the implications of putting the US occupation to a vote in the anticipated Iraqi constitutional referendum. (Posted 8/25/05)
Sami Zubaida examines the difficulties a workable Iraqi constitution will have to address. The author fears these difficulties may be too great for constitutional stability in Iraq. (Posted 8/25/05)
Mary Ellen O'Connell presents a helpful analysis of the issues of legality surrounding the war in Iraq in her "Addendum to Armed Force in Iraq", American Society of International Law Insights, April 2003. (Posted 10/26/05)
Once officially denied, the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi insurgents is now admitted as fact. Accordingly, George Monbiot observes in yesterday's Guardian, "Saddam, facing a possible death sentence, is accused of mass murder, torture, false imprisonment and the use of chemical weapons. He is certainly guilty on all counts. So, it now seems, are those who overthrew him." Click here to read more of Monbiot's account of the use of phosphorus and napalm in Iraq. And click here to read Paul Reynolds circumspect account of the controversy for today's BBC news. (Posted 11/16/05)
War is hard on the body. In a brief reflection on "Stoic Warriors" (an offshoot of her book by the same title), Nancy Sherman addresses the questions of ethical philosophy that might be asked by soldiers returning home from active duty after suffering disabling bodily injuries. (Posted 12/06/05)
Michael Walzer's article on "Just and Unjust Occupations", Dissent winter 2004, was inspired by the case of Iraq, though it has wider application. (Posted 12/11/05)
It once made sense to speak of "civil war" as a possible scenario in Iraq, but now it seems the only term that can adequately capture present conditions in that country. Paul Starobin 12/9/05 commentary in the National Journal brings this point home. (Posted 12/13/05)
In "Iraq and the Use of Force: Do the Side-Effects Justify the Means?", Theoretical Inquiries in Law 7(1), 2005, Robert Cryer and A.P. Simester address the question of whether the moral argument for positive humanitarian consequences in Iraq could (if convincing on its own terms) provide a defense against the charge that the invasion was illegal. (Posted 12/23/05)
In "'Preventive War' and International Law After Iraq," Duncan E. J. Currie finds "that any members of the 'coalition of the willing' may be responsible for compensation, including direct loss, damage, including environmental damage and the depletion of natural resources, or injury to foreign Governments, nationals and corporations... Under Security Council resolution 1483 (2003), no protection is given to Member States or their officials from liability under the Geneva Conventions, Hague Regulations or other provisions of international or national law including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court." (Posted 12/25/05)
The Grotian Moment is a good blog on the trial of Saddam Hussein hosted by the Case School of Law. (Posted 1/1/06)
Too little open-minded attention was paid to critics of the proposed invasion of Iraq prior to its commencement. Indeed, such critics were often intimidated and accused of being anti-American or seditious. Even critical arguments about U.S. national interests were given too little notice. Yet, wouldn't the U.S. and the rest of the world be better off today if the Bush administration had taken the advice of, say, Richard Falk back in the fall of 2002? If so, then should we also follow his more recent advice and declare defeat? (Posted 1/14/06)
The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) "aims to record the severe wrongs, crimes and violations that were committed in the process leading up to the aggression against Iraq, during the war and throughout the ensuing occupation, that continue to be widespread to this day... In the end, the evidence gathered and presented will serve as a historical record that breaks the web of lies promulgated by the war coalition and its embedded press." Visit the WTI here. (Posted 1/14/06)
Activist-artists Sally Marr and Peter Dudar, in coordination with the Santa Barbara chapter of Veterans for Peace have produced "Arlington West," a compelling documentary film whichs pays tribute to those who have died in the war, mourns with those who have lost loved ones, and acknowledges the sacrifices of those who have returned physically or psychologically wounded. (Posted 1/16/06)
In "Reporting from Iraq" (A Century Foundation Report), Johanna McGeary of Time's Bagdad bureau explains what we don't know about what going on in Iraq and why we don't know it. (Posted 1/20/06)
Click here to watch streaming video (asx) of Noam Chomsky's 1/17/06 lecture at University College Dublin, in which he addresses the question of whether the promotion of democracy truly was one of the chief goals of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. (Posted 1/22/06)
In "Friends, Enemies and the War in Iraq: A View from the Founding," Scot J. Zentner suggests "a clarification of just war theory, one which does not require an imminent threat... The American Founders, especially Alexander Hamilton, provide a better,more realistic approach to the question of Iraq than do those who reject out of handthe justice of preventive war." (Posted 1/24/06)
Francis Fukuyama's neoconservative criticisms of the Iraq war came as a surprise to many of his former philosophical allies. His latest book, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy (Yale University Press, 2006), further expounds his position: "In its decision to invade Iraq, the Bush administration failed in its stewardship of American foreign policy. First, the administration wrongly made preventive war the central tenet of its foreign policy. In addition, it badly misjudged the global reaction to its exercise of 'benevolent hegemony.' And finally, it failed to appreciate the difficulties involved in large-scale social engineering, grossly underestimating the difficulties involved in establishing a successful democratic government in Iraq." (Posted 3/2/06)
Linda Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz provide a careful, detailed and authoritative review of "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War" (pdf). (Posted 1/19/06) Stiglitz follows up in "The High Cost of the Iraq War", The Economist's Voice, Berkeley Electronic Press, March 2006. Or construct your own economic estimate of the war by adjusting various factors here. (Posted 3/15/06)
In the midst of an ongoing slow civil war "U.S. military airstrikes have significantly increased in Iraq: "A review of military data shows that daily bombing runs and jet-missile launches have increased by more than 50 percent in the past five months, compared with the same period last year..." (Posted 3/16/06)
In "Power in War," Theoretical Inquiries in Law 7(1), December 2005, Martin van Creveld argues, contrary to traditional real politick assumptions, that "in a long conflict, in which the strong beat down the weak, the former will lose strength, whereas the latter will gain it. This logic has profound implicationsfor counterinsurgency operations, including those ongoing in Iraq." (Posted 3/23/06)
Follow these links to watch the (RealPlayer) videos of Seymour Hersh's lecture on "The War in Iraq: Bush's Democracy and the Real Thing", and/or Noah Feldman's lectures on "The Ethics of Nation-Building: What We Owe Iraq," Part 1,Part 2, and Part 3.These and other video links are available from Princeton WebMedia.(Posted 4/24/06)
In the February 2006 edition of the Boston Review, Barry R. Posen offered an "Exit Strategy" for Iraq. Responses from Senators Feingold and Biden, along with several others, are also included here. (Posted 5/17/06)
Christian Eckhart writes about "Saddam Hussein's Trial in Iraq: Fairness, Legitimacy & Alternatives, Legal Analysis," Cornell Law School Papers Series, 2006, No. 13. (Posted 5/25/06)
In "Ending Tyranny in Iraq," Ethics in International Affairs, 19(2), Summer 2005, Fernando Teson endeavors to show that "the war was morally justified as humanitarian intervention." (For further background, jump down to Teson's theory of humanitarian intervention below.) Critics have largely, if not completely, discredited claims that the invasion and occupation of Iraq were justfiable for the sake of self-defense and counter-terrorism. So, the humanitarian justification remains the last one standing, and it makes the issue of withdrawal particularly thorny. Teson notes that, "It is a mistake to believe that the determination and ferocity of the enemy is the yardstick for the legitimacy of war." So, looking beyond the mere fact of opposition, and leaving aside the traditional but (arguably) dubious question of good intentions, we must now think carefully and critically about how successful the war and the pre-war sanctions have been as putatively humanitarian endeavors. In light of this record, we must then assess the prospect of future humanitarian success by means of military occupation in Iraq. Where Teson sees partial completion of good works, critics see inhumane aggression at worst or humanitarian failure at best. On the question of success or failure, empirical measures of human flourishing and well-being in Iraq are ultimately determinative. (6/5/06)
Anthony Cordesman updates his analysis of how the Iraqi insurgency is changing and veering towards increasingly intense civil conflict in the 4/26/06 version of 'Iraq's Evolving Insurgency'. In the first version of this evolving report, Cordesman concluded that "The Iraqi Government and U.S. can scarcely claim that they are clearly moving towards victory." Now perhaps the most important question has become whether and, if so, when the U.S. can start withdrawing its troops, even without having achieved civil pacification. Recent polling data suggests that Iraqis are somewhat divided over this question: "Almost all Iraqis wanted US-led forces to leave Iraq: 35% wanted withdrawal by July 2006, and 70% wanted withdrawal in two years. Once again, however, there are striking differences. Only 22% of Arab-Shiites wanted the US to withdraw in six months, although 71% wanted withdrawal in two years. Some 13% of Kurds wanted the US to withdraw in six months, and only 40% wanted withdrawal in two years. In the case of Sunnis, however, 83% wanted the US out in six months and 94% in two years." (Initial version posted 6/21/05. Updated version posted 6/6/06)
According to an unclassified intelligence overview the U.S. has discovered in Iraq 500 "pre-Gulf War chemical munitions" containing "degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent." Given the incredibly broad meaning of "WMD", critics of the invasion of Iraq cannot simply say that "no WMD have been found." But neither do the WWI and WWII era chemical munitions that have been found give much credence to the pre-invasion arguments that Colin Powell presented to the United Nations, which were all about high tech mobile facilities for the ongoing production of far more serious anthrax-based biological WMD. (Posted 6/24/06)
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a detailed report demonstrating the grim prospects for success in "Rebuilding Iraq" in accordance with existing strategy. (Posted 7/12/06)
The U.S. National Strategy for Victory in Iraq describes the "progress" of the occupation and sets official conditions for withdrawal. Read alongside the GAO assessment (above), the NSC's "Strategy" appears to be largely an exercise in wishful thinking. (Posted 7/27/06)
For a phenomenologically powerful description of how the geography of fear has taken new shape in post-Saddam Iraq, see Kirk Semple's "Where the Collateral Damage is in the Mind," in yesterday's New York Times. (Posted 7/31/06)
The 21 Billion dollar Iraqi reconstruction plan is looking more and more like a scam perpetrated against American taxpayers by multinational corporations and the politicians who do their bidding. As Senator Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) put it, "We paid for air conditioning and ended up with a ceiling fan. . . You had a big pot of money and you had a lot of hogs in the creek wallowing and shoving and grunting, trying to get some of it. It looks like they were a lot more effective at getting the money than they were at doing reconstruction." Stuart Bowen, the inspector general for U.S. reconstruction projects in Iraq, maintains that the path to corruption was paved by poor planning: "We weren't systematically prepared to do the kind of contracting necessary at the time of the invasion. That's the cold reality.... They were just operating under their own regulations that they wrote up. It was ad hoc. And that's why people described it as the Wild West." Or was that just part of the plan? Read more from the Washington Post. (Posted 8/9/06)
Check out Dissent, Summer 2006, for an exchange between Michael Walzer and Jean Bethke Elshtain on the question of whether regime change justifies the war in Iraq. (Posted 8/22/06)
In "Saddam Hussein's Trial in Iraq: Fairness,Legitimacy & Alternatives, a Legal Analysis," Cornell Law School Paper Series, number 13, 2006, Christian Eckart argues that the Bagdad court proceedings demonstrate the advantages of referring such cases to the International Criminal Court. (Posted 9/7/06)
Wars waged without just cause still give rise to occasions for the justifiable use of arms. Case in point of such just conduct in an otherwise largely unjust war is the 6/7/06 airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq. See Anthony Dworkin's argument in "An Acceptable Case of Targeted Killing," Crimes of War Project, June 8, 2006. (Posted 10/05/06)
Epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University estimate that Iraq's "excess" death toll has now reached 665,000. This figure seriously undermines the credibility of humanitarian justifications of the war. (Posted 10/15/06)
"Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation." (Posted 10/26/06)
The report of the Iraq Study Group indicates that the situation in that country is "grave and deteriorating," and recommends (1) transitioning U.S. forces from combat/security to training/advisory operations, (2) making further aid conditional upon progress towards settling sectarian strife, and (3) engaging in constructive diplomacy with Syria and Iran as a means of stabilizaing the region. (Posted 12/7/06)
In "Can't Stay the Course, Can't End the War, But We'll Call it Bipartisan," Phyllis Bennis and Erik Leaver offer a cogent critical review of the Iraq Study Group report. (Posted 12/9/06)
"Iraqi Refugees: Critical Needs Remain Unmet," Refugees International, December 11 2006, reports that "Over 1.8 million Iraqi refugees are currently spread throughout the Middle East, with the largest concentrations in Syria and Jordan and sizable populations in Lebanon and Egypt..." A war putatively justified on humanitarian grounds (it's the last justification still almost standing -- see Teson'